Crews arrived at Asbury Apartments at 215 McDaniel St. to an eight-story apartment complex. When firefighters got inside, they found smoke in the hallways and discovered a cooking fire on the seventh floor.
“Not a big fire by any means but because of the large number of occupants and the large amount of smoke that was produced it did present some challenges,” Landis said. “We had to use a decent number of firefighters to get everything searched, to make sure everybody was safe, make sure everybody was out of the building and then make sure the fire was out.”
The building has working fire alarms and residents were able to evacuate safely.
The residents will be able to continue living in the unit where the fire started, Landis said.
“Cooking fires can produce a tremendous amount of smoke and when you have a building of this size there’s nowhere for it to go except throughout the rest of the building,” he added.
With temperatures in the 90s and heat indexes around 100 degrees, firefighters are taking extra care to make sure they stay hydrated.
“By the time that you realize that you feel dehydrated it’s already too late,” Landis said. “We encourage them to start in the morning and start the day before to make sure they’re drinking plenty of water.”
They are also trying to have additional firefighters on scene in case crews need to rotate quickly, Landis added.
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